When Church Culture Has No Room for Trauma

My friend and colleague Liz Harden was teaching last night on the Mission, Theology and Ministry for the Margins course about trauma. It was on Zoom, and even through a screen you could feel at points how heavy the subject was. But you could also hear from the feedback and conversations afterwards how much students appreciated somebody speaking honestly about it.

It got me thinking again about church culture.

If I am honest, I think some churches struggle with trauma because traumatised people do not always fit the kind of emotional environment we have learned to create.

We like positivity.

Energy.

Solutions.

Good vibes.

Polished services.

People holding themselves together.

And those environments can work well for lots of people.

Until somebody turns up who is falling apart.

Because traumatised people are not always calm, articulate, emotionally regulated, and easy to manage. Sometimes they are anxious. Distrustful. Withdrawn. Sometimes they are angry or chaotic. Sometimes they disappear for months and then suddenly reappear.

Sometimes they sit near the door because they are not sure they can stay.

Safeguarding matters deeply, obviously. Churches should not be naïve about risk or complexity. But I do sometimes wonder whether we confuse safety with comfort, orderliness, and the absence of disruption.

And if our churches only really work for people who are emotionally controlled and socially functional, many wounded people will quietly conclude that the gospel is probably for other people, not them.

One of the things that strikes me in the gospels is how unembarrassed Jesus seems by damaged people. He does not avoid grief, public shame, mess, or complicated lives. Again and again Jesus seems willing to stay close to people other people avoided.

I do not think trauma-informed ministry means turning the church into a therapy room. And I do not think wisdom means having no boundaries. But I do think part of Christian maturity is learning how to create communities where people do not have to pretend to be okay in order to belong.

I also know there are churches that already do this well, whether or not they would ever use the language of being “trauma-informed”. Communities where wounded people are welcomed patiently, where weakness is not embarrassing, and where people slowly find safety, dignity, friendship, and healing.

A lot of traumatised people can tell within minutes whether a church has room for real human weakness. But they can also, sometimes almost subconsciously, pick up on cultures of welcome, inclusion, gentleness, and safety too.

— Jon Swales